Longacres Race Track — Program Cover

Longacres opened August 3, 1933, built on a leased 107-acre dairy farm in Renton's Green River Valley. Founders Joseph Gottstein and William Edris hired B. Marcus Priteca — Seattle's foremost theater architect, responsible for dozens of Pantages and Loew's houses — and put 3,000 workers on round-the-clock shifts. Twenty-eight days after Priteca picked up his pencil, the racing strip, grandstand, clubhouse, and 33 barns were complete.

By 1968 the track was well into its peak years. The fast surface — Green River sandy loam over hard clay — suited stakes racing, and the annual Longacres Mile had become the Pacific Northwest's marquee event. The TRA (Thoroughbred Racing Associations) seal above the masthead marks Longacres as a member of the industry's self-regulating trade body, formed in 1942 to standardize rules and promote integrity across North American tracks.

The price breakdown on the right margin — 33 cents estimated base price plus 2 cents Washington sales tax, totaling 35 cents — reflects how deliberately affordable a day at Longacres was kept. The track served working-class King County families as much as the racing set, and cheap programs were part of that pitch.

Longacres closed September 21, 1992, after Boeing purchased the land for a campus expansion. At the time of closing it was the oldest continuously operating thoroughbred track on the West Coast.